Hamilton beat Vettel to top the drivers chart

Snapshot: Hamilton took over the lead as soon as the race started in Marina Bay, Singapore when Nico Rosberg faced a technical snag in gearbox and couldn't even start the race.

In an interesting turn of events, Lewis Hamilton beat Sebastian Vettel to move up the championship ladder and became the leader, ahead of team mate Nico Rosberg by a margin of 3 points only. Hamilton took over the lead as soon as the race started in Marina Bay, Singapore when Nico Rosberg faced a technical snag in the gearbox and couldn't even start the race.

Things became more terrifying for the race officials later, as the Force India's Sergio Perez had an accident with the former Force India, now Sauber's, Adrian Sutil. The fragments of the wings scattered all over the track, forcing Safety vehicle to come on track at 31st lap. Force India also gained substantial points after a not so good qualifying session. Both the drivers were not even in the top 10 of the grid, but they performed well and earned the points finishing the race at 7th and 9th positions.

As we reported earlier in our qualifying coverage, this was the first race after the radio ban episode and all the technical staff along with drivers were very critical about the safety of the drivers. But the race went well and showed some terrific overtaking by both Red Bulls and Ferrari. With only 5 races left in the season, the championship will now see neck to neck competition between team mates of Mercedes.

The championship table now sees Hamilton on top with 241 points, followed by his team mate Rosberg at 238 points. Daniel Riciardo of red Bull sits in third position with 181 points, followed Alonso with 133 pints and Vettel with 124 points.

In the constructors table, Mercedes sits comfortably on top with 479 points, followed by Red bull racing at 305 points. The gap is huge considering only 5 races are left in the season. Mercedes Williams is at 3 with 187 points, followed by Ferrari and Force India with 178 and 117 points respectively.

The standing was as follows

Pos

No

Driver

Team

Laps

Time/Retired

Grid

Pts

1

44

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes

60

2:00:04.795

1

25

2

1

Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull Racing-Renault

60

+13.5 secs

4

18

3

3

Daniel Ricciardo

Red Bull Racing-Renault

60

+14.2 secs

3

15

4

14

Fernando Alonso

Ferrari

60

+15.3 secs

5

12

5

19

Felipe Massa

Williams-Mercedes

60

+42.1 secs

6

10

6

25

Jean-Eric Vergne

STR-Renault

60

+56.8 secs

12

8

7

11

Sergio Perez

Force India-Mercedes

60

+59.0 secs

15

6

8

7

Kimi Räikkönen

Ferrari

60

+60.6 secs

7

4

9

27

Nico Hulkenberg

Force India-Mercedes

60

+61.6 secs

13

2

10

20

Kevin Magnussen

McLaren-Mercedes

60

+62.2 secs

9

1

The next race will be on 3rd October in Japan. It will be interesting to see how both the Mercedes drivers will fight against each other considering a gap of 3 points only. With two consecutive wins in Italy and Singapore, Hamilton is flying high with confidence and will aim at finishing the season at his top. But his team mate Rosberg, who, ran out of luck, will not give up the fight this easily.